A Strengths-Based Approach to Recruitment

Recruiting the ideal person is hard. It is estimated the cost of the time invested in recruitment, induction and bringing someone up to speed in their new role equates to 1.5 to 2 times of their salary. And this does not include the impact if the culture fit is not right.

Recruitment is a tricky process. How can you use strengths to help increase the chances of success?

A proviso before we start

It is not recommended to recruit for strengths.  In summary the reasons are:

• Strengths is a development tool

• Strengths tell us how, not what we do

• The tool has not been validated as a predictive measure of success in a given role

The good news is strengths can aid the process.

Step 1 Leverage strengths insights to understand your culture and the team

1. Talent map all of your team. Complete CliftonStrengths top 5 assessments for your people

2. Identify your best performers in each function. Filters could include those who got the highest

   • Performance ratings for the previous year, as long as they are calibrated by other managers

   • Customer satisfaction ratings if client facing roles

3. Facilitate a focus group with these people “you would want to hire more of” and ask them questions based on their understanding of their strengths

   • What makes them good at their role?

   • How do they know they have done a good job?

   • What talents do you think are required to do your job well?

   • If they were to hire someone else into the role, what kind of questions would they ask to ensure they get the right candidate? 

   • Based on the above discussion, review the job description leveraging the review questions (a) what’s working? (b) where are we getting stuck? (c) what could we do differently?

4. From the company talent inventory build a profile of your company so you are able to describe the company culture to a candidate so they know likely fit

5. Enable your hiring manager’s to be comfortable with the strengths language.  This can be done through workshops, individual manager coaching, establishing a strengths expert within the team, providing good reference tools. This means they can understand how to

   • Define the talents

   • Manage the talents

   • Recruit for talents

Step 2 Create and refine the job description, advertisement and interview questions

Based on the outputs of the focus group above, create the following. Or could you get the focus group to create them for you? After all they are closest to the work so would know best.

1. The job description

2. The job advertisement

3. A list of standard questions you would want to ask potential candidates

The aim with these documents is to help someone definitively filter if this is the right role for them.

Step 3 Standardise your approach to the interview process to reduce bias

Adam Grant in his article for the New York Times, Job interviews are broken, here’s how to fix them, recommends taking a standard approach to your job interview process by

1. Having more than one person involved

2. Asking behavioural questions. Examples of questions include

   • What do you enjoy doing the most?

   • What types of tasks come easily to you? What are the hardest things to do?

   • What do you enjoy learning the most? The least?

   • How do you define success?

   • What are the accomplishments that you are the most proud of, and why?

   • Are you typically able to finish your to-do list? What is usually left undone? 

   • What gives you energy? What makes you want to get out of bed in the morning? 

   • What motivates you?

3. Take a structured approach to interviews asking the same questions of everyone which marry back to the key talents you are looking for

4. Ask for a work sample and get them to talk you through it, or give them a case study/activity to complete that demonstrates the talents you are looking for